


if this desert's all there'll ever be then tell me what becomes of me?

by orphan_account



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Character Study, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-17
Updated: 2015-05-17
Packaged: 2018-03-31 00:31:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 667
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3957742
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She's walking through the desert.</p>
            </blockquote>





	if this desert's all there'll ever be then tell me what becomes of me?

She’s walking through the desert.

The sun hangs low overhead, a fat, bulbous glow glaring balefully down at her. The sand beneath her feet is hot enough to burn. The air is still and dead.

It annoys her, even though it has always been this way. The desert has always been endless. She has always been walking. She has never known anything different, never been anything but alone. She has never had –

_a castle a house a home a man with a smile a laugh a serious look a ring a suit a baby a baby a baby_

She doesn’t know.

_poor little alice, it’s time to huff and to puff and to scream your house down_

She takes another step, and the sky shifts, fluffy white clouds chasing each other across a brilliant blue sky. Another, and the stars twinkle cheerily at her; another, and the heavens give way to the planets and the smears of fate and fortune written out on the black backdrop of eternity.

It doesn’t make a difference. The sand is still hot and the air is still lifeless and stifling, every laborious breath of it scraping through her lungs like sandpaper. The desert is endless and unbroken.

When she next looks up, she is not alone. She doesn’t know who he is, the man that walks beside her. He is tall (she doesn’t know why that surprises her, but it does) and broad shouldered, and he looks like a hero. She’s proud of him – so proud of him, her mysterious hero man that she knows so well (that she’s never seen before). He looks like he could carry the world with one hand, but even so, she wishes he didn’t have to.

He seems so sad.

_Frank, he smiled at me! He smiled – do it again, baby, smile for Daddy!_

He shouldn’t be sad.

He stops walking and she stops with him, her aching feet complaining at the change in pace. For a second and an hour he looks at her, one hand half raised as though he wants to reach out to her. He smiles crookedly in farewell.

Suddenly, she is afraid. He has always been with her, this mystery man, he is everything she has ever had and ever known, and she doesn’t want to be alone. She doesn’t know  _how_ to be alone. She scrabbles in her pockets, in the sand at her feet, in the molasses-thick air above her head for something,  _anything_  to keep him with her.

_I would rather die before I gave my baby to you_

But all her fingers close on is a wrapper, pink and slightly sticky. She stares at it in despair, ashamed but desperate enough to hold it out to him. It’s all she has.

_Stay,_  she wants to say, but the words are heavy on her tongue and she has forgotten how to speak.

_I found it in the sand,_  she wants to explain, to give some meaning to the pathetic scrap of paper.  _I found it, and it reminded me of_

_of_

She doesn’t say anything. She stands there, mutely, staring at the splash of pink colour in her withered hand.

The man takes it from her fingers and smiles as though it means something.

“I know,” he says, his voice the only sound in her barren desert. “I know,” he says, and his voice breaks. “I love you too, mum.”

She nods, because that sounds right. That sounds good. The man smiles again, and she almost feels that she could smile back at him.

The man fades before she can, taking the wrapper with him. She stands staring at the spot where he used to be for a moment and a lifetime, then shakes herself. She’s not walking. She isn’t sure why she stopped.

The desert stretches before her, endless and all she has ever known, and she begins to trudge forwards again. The sun beats down mercilessly overhead, and she has never been anything but alone/

**Author's Note:**

> I have a tumblr! Come find me at [aethelar.tumblr.com](http://aethelar.tumblr.com)


End file.
